


Bumps In The Road

by dillonmania



Category: DCU (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Dark Thoughts, Depression, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, The Rogues (DCU) As Family, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-27 19:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13888038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dillonmania/pseuds/dillonmania
Summary: Two times Hartley and Len helped Roscoe through mental health crises.





	Bumps In The Road

**Author's Note:**

> We know that Roscoe is mentally ill, and he's canonically [held a gun to his head and fired it](https://i.imgur.com/H3CiSxa.jpg) (for supervillain reasons, but he was quite willing to shoot himself) and committed the [ghost equivalent of suicide by jumping out of his host body and going back to Hell](https://i.imgur.com/iTS4qPY.jpg). I wanted to explore the concept a bit, and there's also a bit of wishful thinking here about the Rogues supporting each other in times of trouble...something they're notoriously bad at.
> 
> The scenes in this story are set in the Silver Age and the Bronze Age, and are before Roscoe started dating Lisa.

The Rogues’ situation had been tense for a few days, as a group heist had gone wrong and a bank guard had been injured. His life wasn’t in danger, but it was serious enough that the police were determinedly hunting the Rogues and they were anxiously holed up together while they decided what to do.

“We have to split up and make a break for it!” Mark insisted for maybe the twelfth time, and Len raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.  
“I told you, we’ll be easy pickings if we do. We need to stay together to form a united front.”  
“Can we try contacting Sam again? Maybe he’ll come get us and we can lie low in a mirrorverse for a while,” Hartley suggested optimistically, although Len shook his head.  
“Forget about him. He’s ignoring us for a reason.”  
“We can’t just stay here and wait for the cops to break the door down,” Mick said, but Len frowned.  
“That’s our best option at this point, unless someone else has a bright idea.”

“Death,” Roscoe spoke up suddenly from his corner. It was the first thing he’d said all afternoon, so the others turned to stare at him. He was resting his chin uncomfortably on the table, and had an unfocused faraway look in his reddened eyes.  
“…what?” Len asked, scowling.  
“It’s the only way out.”  
“Don’t be an idiot—" Len began chiding in annoyance, but Roscoe quickly interrupted him.  
“I am not stupid! Stop saying that!”

Hartley bit his lip and willed himself to maintain a neutral expression. “Roscoe, are you okay?”  
“No,” the other man replied softly, eyes now tightly shut. He was rocking slightly and sweating, and occasionally biting his fingers. “I need to get out of here.”  
“Well you can’t,” Len said with some irritation, concerned that he was losing control of the group and the situation. “We’re all staying put.”  
“I have to get out!”

Roscoe pulled a handgun from under the table and placed the tip of the barrel in his mouth. The other Rogues were momentarily shocked into silence, as they hadn’t even been aware he was hiding any non-top weapons, but Mark soon jumped to his feet and seemed ready to snatch the gun from him.  
“Whoa, whoa, everybody calm down,” Hartley announced worriedly, hands slightly raised in an attempt to seem non-threatening. “James, can you get the other guys out of here so we’re not crowding him?”  
“I’m in charge here, I’m staying,” Len growled as James ushered the rest into the next room, and Hartley didn’t want to argue with him right now. Besides, the two of them had dealt with this situation before.

****

Len thought back to an unpleasant experience three years earlier.

The Rogues had been quietly doing their own activities in a shared hideout when Roscoe had energetically jogged in to join them; this was unexpected, as he’d been morose and quiet for several weeks and even more antisocial than usual. But something about him still seemed off now, a manner of being that Hartley later described as “brittle”.

“I hate every last one of you!” Roscoe chirped gleefully, and the other Rogues blinked at him in surprise.  
“Nice to see you’re feeling better, asshole,” Mark muttered with rolled eyes. There were a few snickers from the others.  
“I’m feeling great!” Roscoe declared exuberantly, spinning in place a bit, and he waltzed over to Len with customary agility. A sour smell clung to his body and unusually grubby clothing, prompting Len to wrinkle his nose.  
“You know I hate you more than the others, right?” he told Len. “I’m only sorry I’ll never get to see the Flash beat the absolute hell out of you, because it’ll be so richly deserved.” He bowed to the Rogues with a deep flourish before Len could say anything, and was suddenly gone.

“What the fuck is that kook’s problem now?” Len growled, though Sam shrugged without too much care.  
“Probably off his meds again.”  
“Yeah, but that was weird even for him,” Hartley said with a frown, fingers drumming rapidly on the table next to him. “I wonder if he’s okay.”  
“Who cares if he is? Did you hear what he just said?” demanded Len, but most of the Rogues weren’t particularly interested in his outrage or even the events of the past few minutes. Hartley got up to go check on their colleague (few of them would have called Roscoe a friend), and Len followed solely to kick the guy’s ass once he’d been found.

The duo headed through the warrens of the warehouse district to reach Roscoe’s apartment, but Hartley abruptly stopped mid-way and strained to listen for sounds he believed he’d heard.  
“That’s strange. I think I hear him nearby, but he’s breathing heavily and peeling off a lot of tape.”  
“He’s probably jerking it, so that’s one more reason to beat the shit out of him.”  
“No, I -- I think he’s distressed.”

Hartley broke into a jog, listening to the sounds and trying to ascertain the missing man’s location. Finally he gestured to Len and pointed at a neighbouring warehouse with a side door left ajar, so the two Rogues walked cautiously inside.

Roscoe was sitting on the floor of a cavernous empty building, wordlessly tearing off large pieces of packing tape and affixing a red top to the side of his head. Len burst out laughing at the sight of it, whereupon Roscoe stared at them with wide eyes and jumped to his feet.  
“Go away!” he shouted furiously, picking up another top and looking as though he might throw it at them. Len was still laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, but Hartley watched it all somberly.

“Your red tops are explosive, aren’t they, Roscoe? You’re planning to blow yourself up,” Hartley said in a quiet, measured tone.  
“I’m not. Stay back and leave me alone.”  
“You seemed happy earlier because you had an exit plan, didn’t you?”  
This point of questioning seemed to make Roscoe vengefully angry. “Why don’t you mind your own business?” he snarled with a rage born of extreme frustration. “I am doing just fine, just as I always have!”

“I’d feel a lot better if you’d give me the top, and I think you would too,” Hartley replied patiently, and something in the other man seemed to snap.  
“Why does no one ever _listen_ to me? I try and I try, and nothing’s ever good enough! Nobody ever thinks I’m good enough! Just a mediocre supervillain and an even more mediocre son, and of course I don’t have feelings so who would ever mind what they say! I don’t want to deal with it anymore, and I don’t want to live anymore -- not like this! I’m done!”

“Calm the fuck down,” Len spat at him, exasperated but a bit scared for him too, and Roscoe’s entire body trembled with fury. He pressed a hidden button on the top-bomb which was taped to his head, and the device began blinking and ticking ominously.  
“Oh God,” Hartley breathed, but Len pulled out his cold gun faster than the others would have thought possible, and in an instant Roscoe was completely encased in ice.

“That should be cold enough to deactivate the bomb,” Len noted with a slight frown, though Hartley still looked frantic.  
“And is he going to be alive in there?”  
“Should be, once he thaws out in a day or so. And if he isn’t, well…that’s pretty much what he wanted, right?”

Len never did understand why Hartley had slugged him, considering he’d saved the day and all.

****

“I need to get out,” Roscoe said quietly, the gun still resting in his mouth. “One way or the other.”  
“We can talk about it, but I’d like you to put the gun down,” Hartley told him in a calming tone, his expression as gentle as he could keep it. Len stood by silently, waiting to see if he was needed.  
Roscoe took a deep breath and his rocking intensified. “There is a voice calling me stupid and it says I have to get out of here or terrible things will happen. Whispers about blood and a mocking laugh which knows about the guard's injuries and what the police are going to do to us...I really don’t want to hear it anymore, I just want some peace and quiet.”

“A voice..?” Hartley asked carefully, eyebrows raised. “Like in your head?”  
There was a silent nod, and the others finally realized just how exhausted he looked. Everyone was tired and stressed out at the moment, but Roscoe’s sunken eyes were completely bloodshot and the dark circles around them suggested he was doing far more poorly than most. Len wondered if he’d gotten any sleep in days.

“Have you been taking your meds?” Hartley asked.  
“Yes! Yes I have, and they aren’t helping,” Roscoe said with palpable desperation. “Please, let me get out of here, or I will shoot my medulla oblongata and end it.”  
“If you go out and the cops catch you, you’ll be stuck in prison and far worse off than you are now,” Len noted, and Hartley glared darkly at him for potentially nudging Roscoe towards something drastic.

“Don’t listen to him, he’s just being Len,” Hartley soothed after regaining his composure. “We’ll get you out of here, and we’ll all go together.”  
“Like fuck we will!” Len growled, but Hartley’s calm demeanour didn’t waver this time.  
“Like I said, just being Len. Give me the gun, and I promise you’ll get out.”

Roscoe let out a choked sob, and seemed to be weighing his options as his hands trembled violently around the grip of the gun. An agonizing minute passed by, and then he slowly took the weapon out of his mouth and placed it on the table before slumping over with fatigue. Smiling, Hartley carefully pulled the gun out of reach and gently patted Roscoe on the shoulder, who visibly flinched at his touch.  
“Tell Mark to get the car ready. I know someone who can help,” Hartley told Len quietly.

****

Roscoe drowsily closed his eyes an hour later, slowly drifting away on an antique dental chair as Hartley and Len sat nearby.

“He should sleep for a bit, and will hopefully be calmer when he wakes up,” the doctor said as she peeled off her gloves. “I’ve given him a benzo to get some rest, along with a dose of aripiprazole to lessen the mania; we’ll see if that helps any better than what he was taking before.”  
“Is he gonna keep hearing voices?” Len asked.  
“Hopefully they’ll disappear once his mania is under control. Mental health isn’t an exact science, so it’s impossible to say for sure, but getting out of the stressful situation in your hideout can only be an improvement for him.”

“Thank you so much,” Hartley told the doctor warmly, shaking her hand. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a portion of his take from the Rogues’ earlier heist to pay her, which she accepted with a slight smile.  
“Always happy for some extra business, even if it’s off the record,” she said as she returned to the front area of the office to check on the patients legally allowed to be there.

“So what do we do when the cops inevitably come for us?” Len asked when the men were alone, and Hartley yawned.  
“We’ll fight our way out together if we have to. But avoiding the cops wasn’t worth Roscoe’s life….he’s a Rogue, and Rogues look after each other.”  
“Yeah, we do,” Len said with some chagrin, but he smiled a few moments later. The two men exchanged a quick handshake of mutual camaraderie, and went to go find the others.


End file.
